


Loyalty

by BDBriggs



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical language, Gen, set between S6-S10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27830221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BDBriggs/pseuds/BDBriggs
Summary: Wash knows the reds and blues work together as a team long before he realizes why, or how, or when that even started. He knows loyalty is hard to come by, so he grudgingly respects it even as they screw up his plans over and over again.Aka four times the reds and blues proved their loyalty, plus one time Wash proved his.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Loyalty

**Author's Note:**

> First Red vs. Blue fic in...years. It's been a long time (and a new ao3 account / tumblr) since I've written anything for this fandom, and honestly, it's good to be back. I stopped watching after S13, but I'm rewatching it with a friend and man, I'm hit with all the old feelings a thousand times stronger. 
> 
> Carolina is so awful to Wash in Season 10...It's pretty heartbreaking to go back and watch those episodes. 
> 
> Anyways. Trying out a new style, and it's rough, so fair warning. I hope you enjoy it =)

1

The reds and blues have always worked well as a team, at least as long as Wash has known them. It’s not something he acknowledged in the early days. Back then he was still under command’s thumb. He still felt the lingering ghosts of his former teammates; the competition, the desperation, the knowledge that if you offered someone a hand they would to drag you to the ground and step on you to ascend the ladder. The leaderboard, the rankings, the constant threat of _not being good enough_. While most of his former teammates were dead by that point, the desperation to stay at the top no matter the cost remained. In the early days, Wash spent more time stepping on the reds and blues than he’d ever care to admit. He keeps himself distant and above them, determined not to get close enough for them to betray him.

But one thing is clear to him, even early on: the reds and blues aren’t at war.

Oh, sure, they squabble. They fight, they bicker, they purposefully make life difficult for each other. But they are not the two opposing armies command told them to be, nor the two opposing armies they themselves _claim_ to be. It confuses Wash at first, more than anything. At the power facility when the reds show up, Church seems all too happy to dogpile on what idiots they are, and yet they foil Wash’s plans without even trying.

When the Meta escapes, all Wash can do is scream at them for fucking it up. He can’t _believe_ that even simulation troopers could get in the way so badly. They’re _idiots_ , _morons_ , and they stand together and shoot insults back at him. Right then, Wash is struck by the fact that, if it were any Freelancer standing beside him instead of Church, the reds would be dead. They wouldn’t be yelling at each other, trading insults and venting their frustration. The reds would be dead. Hell, they probably would have been dead the moment they drove in, or before, that shitty polka music having given them away.

But Church isn’t a freelancer. That much is obvious in the lack of training, but even more obvious in the way he treats his so-called enemies. And Wash has never been the type to shoot first and ask questions later. So the reds get to live another day, as little as they deserve it.

Wash doesn’t understand the complicated minefield of a relationship between the reds and blues. Hell, he barely understands his place in it, content to play at being leader for the moment. But he understands that the dynamic between them is different than anything he’s used to.

It doesn’t matter. He has three more soldiers who can help him take down the Meta, and if they’re so good at fucking up _his_ plans, maybe they’ll get lucky and fuck up the Meta’s plan as well. Now he’s got five men with him, including—

_—Caboose!_

The five of them rush up to the catwalk where Caboose lays. The healing unit is still functioning, thank _goodness_ , but it’s not pulsing on overdrive like it does when someone’s badly injured. It’s gently humming, still emitting that soft green glow, but Caboose isn’t moving.

Wash checks him over. He _seems_ fine, and Wash knows from experience that the healing unit can be a miracle worker, but Caboose isn’t moving. The longer Wash takes, the more antsy Church and the reds get. Despite supposedly being enemies, the reds hover awfully close. Church kneels down beside Caboose, fingers tapping against his sniper rifle anxiously.

There’s not much Wash can tell him. His vitals are fine. The reds practically yell at him when he asks if they know a medic, so that’s a dead end. They have no one with the training or equipment necessary to figure out what’s wrong with Caboose. The most Wash can do is call command for a med-evac. He barely gets a hold of command before Simmons rushes over to him.

_Turns out we do know a medic after all!_

Wash is still upset about the reds screwing things up and letting the Meta get away. So when Simmons strolls up to him and admits they lied, this white-hot ball of anger makes itself known in his chest. Wash spins around, furious, ready to give the sim trooper a piece of his mind, but Simmons starts…talking.

Rambling. He’s rambling. Wash watches, dumbfounded, as Simmons rambles, the subject starting with probabilities of death on the battlefield, then onto math, and then, _inexplicably,_ Star Wars, and Wash counts to two minutes in his head before heading back down the ramp to ask someone else to call their medic. Preferably Church.

And Church—

Well. Wash is mostly too busy processing Delta’s message and the fact that Church is the _Alpha_ , but he knows one thing. The reds, while they did a spectacularly shitty job of it, were trying to cover for Church. They knew his secret, even if they didn’t understand it, and they tried to protect him. And Church either trusted them to do it or counted Wash’s ire a necessary evil if he could get Caboose back in the process.

It hits Wash, then, that the reds and blues aren’t loyal to him, or even to command, but they’re loyal to each other. And he doesn’t understand it, but he admires them for it. Loyalty, he knows, is hard to come by.

2

Life has a funny way of biting you in the ass.

Wash has done plenty of shitty things in his life. He signed on to a questionable project, he did their dirty work, he kept their secrets, and he murdered the one teammate he had left. He endured the manipulation and lies back in the project, kept going after getting his head ripped apart by Epsilon, survived every bullet and car and grenade that came his way since basic training. And yet, nothing prepared him for the sheer cruelty of _surviving_.

_I’m sorry. Did something about my actions suggest I expect to survive?_

He meant it. He hoped for an end. He welcomed it.

And life laughs in his face, slaps manacles on his wrists and throws him behind bars.

Wash spends months in prison, and while those months are _far_ shorter than the length of his sentence, it still feels like an eternity. He grows bitter and resentful. And when Caboose calls him and tells him about their shiny new bases and new command, Wash is _livid_. That white-hot ball of anger he’s become familiar with swells to a dangerous size within him, but he ignores it for the moment. He has a _plan_. It might not work, it might get him killed instead, but any plan is better than rotting behind bars for the rest of his life sentence.

The chairman agrees to let him go after the Epsilon unit. After all, the chairman isn’t familiar with Freelancer’s reds and blues. Wash might be the only man left alive who is, aside from the simulation troopers themselves. All Wash has to do is track down the Epsilon unit. He knows where Valhalla is. He knows the reds and blues. He knows exactly how to get that unit into his hands and he knows it won’t be easy.

See, the reds and blues aren’t loyal to him. They aren’t even loyal to command, else they would have turned Epsilon in to the authorities no matter how badly Caboose wanted to keep the unit. The reds and blues are loyal only to each other.

Wash thinks in equipment. He thinks in terms of the weapons he’ll need to take them down— _invisibility, overshield, anything left over from freelancer_ —and starts planning. He’ll need to take out the reds’ vehicles first. Those jeeps are too dangerous, and he doesn’t relish the thought of fighting against a car, not with his track record. No, he is going to be careful. He’s going to be methodical. He’s going in with a plan to wipe out the sim troopers, because he knows they’ll protect that stupid unit, they’ll protect _each other_ with their lives.

So it’s all the more hilarious when the chairman demands how he’s going to ask them for the Epsilon unit. Wash thinks of his half-constructed plans and says to wipe out the simulation troopers and smiles.

_What in the hell makes you think I’m going to ask for it_?

When he reaches Valhalla, the reds play right into his hand.

Wash only recognizes Simmons. The brown one and the pink one surprise him a little, but not enough to loosen the ball of anger that’s been growing since Caboose’s radio call. The three reds line up together, in front of one of their damn jeeps, and Wash spares a moment to admire them. Facing down the Meta with only the three of them, no equipment, no training, just guns and armor and loyalty, the reds stand together at what they must know is the end. Not even the Freelancers stood together at the end like that, Wash thinks bitterly. But Wash has become the type of person to shoot first and ask questions later. He knows what to do, and he knows better than to think too long or too hard on it.

Shooting the brown one jolts the ball of anger in his chest. It doesn’t go away. For good measure, he shoots the pink one, too.

_Why did you do that, what’s wrong with you?!_

It doesn’t matter. The sim troopers don’t matter. All Wash needs to do is find Epsilon. Besides, all those armor enhancements aren’t worth _jack-shit_ to Wash if the guy wearing them is dead. He just needs that medic of theirs to show up and keep the Meta from kicking the bucket, and the two dying guys on the ground will help with that.

At least the medics are loyal to command, Wash thinks, even if the reds and blues aren’t.

3

Wash hates the reds and blues and their damnable loyalty. All loyalty ever got him was a shattered mind and a bullet to the back. The reds come back for Simmons, and they bring a _car_ , and Wash gets blown up and run over and thoroughly frustrated before the day is over.

He trusts the Meta about as far as he can throw him, which really isn’t far. Wash trudges through the desert with two enemies at his side and that ever-present ball of anger in his chest. The desert is miserable. They find _C.T._ , which puts him in a fantastically terrible mood.

_Wake up. Wake the fuck up._

The aliens don’t last long. Wash is _angry_ , and he’s honestly glad when he sees the slur they’ve drawn into the sand, because it means he can take out some of his frustration on them. The ball doesn’t jolt or loosen when he kills them. It just grows bigger the longer Doc talks, the longer the Meta acts up. It spikes when the Meta throws out the empty fucking memory unit.

Fine. If the reds and blues want to fuck up his plans even more, he’ll just have to roll with the punches. He modifies the unit into a capture unit, fixes it with a spike long and wide enough to hurt. He hopes whatever Epsilon was transferred into has pain receptors.

The recovery beacon feels like the first stroke of luck since Wash joined the project. They push their jeep as fast as it’ll go, Doc punching it through sand and rocks and snow. Wash counts his bullets, goes over strategies and plans in his head. He’s prepared for a fight.

He is not prepared for the silence.

Nor is he prepared for Tex, in all honesty. Seeing one of his teammates alive jolts him—she’s _alive_ , they can work together, they can—

_Where’s the Director?_

Ah, now that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? If Wash knew the answer, the Director would have been dead a thousand times over by now. But Wash _doesn’t_ know the answer, and Tex doesn’t want to work together, and while Wash doesn’t want to fight, he wants to live. He wants to get Epsilon, who he sees crouching in the snow out of the corner of his eye. He’ll fight Tex for that. He competed against her before. And while he didn’t win before, he’ll do his damn best to pull her to the ground and climb over her.

But Tex ends up in the memory unit instead of Epsilon, and the Meta betrays him as soon as he has an AI to run his equipment. Wash curses Project Freelancer, curses the Director for making them compete and tear each other to shreds. Loyalty is hard to come by, Wash knows. He shouldn’t have expected it from the Meta. He _should_ have expected it from the reds and blues, however. It’s still somehow baffling to see the pelican crash, to realize the reds and blues came to save the day. Wash is too stunned to care that they’re probably here to kill him.

Things move quickly after that. The reds and blues leave to find tools and power; Church insists on trying to find Tex in the memory unit; the Meta stands up. The world dissolves into snow and bullets and explosions. Wash wants to live. He’ll scrap and fight to the last damn breath, and if he needs to fight the Meta to get out of this mess, he’ll fight the goddamn Meta.

It’s not a fight he wins.

This time, Wash isn’t baffled to see the reds and blues charge into the fray. They aren’t doing this for him, they aren’t doing this for command; they’re doing this for each other. For Tex, maybe. For Church. For themselves, to keep the Meta from trying to kill them ever again. The reds and blues stand together and _work_ together. The Meta falls off the cliff and Wash falls into the snow.

_I can’t. I’m done_.

4

The reds and blues don’t trust Wash as far as they can throw him, which really isn’t far. Well—maybe if Caboose threw him. That’d be farther. Correction: they trust him about as much as Simmons could throw him. Which is about an inch, if Simmons could even get him off the ground in the first place.

Wash nurses broken ribs and shrapnel wounds and burns. It’s a miracle he’s survived this long, honestly, especially considering Doc gave him _orange juice_ and patted him on the back.

(That’s only partly true. Doc patched his injuries as best he could once they got away from command. The stitches aren’t neat or even, but they hold his skin together, and Wash honestly can’t complain.)

The reds and blues don’t give Wash _nearly_ as much grief as he expected. He tries not to mention the fact that he shot two of their guys, convinced Alpha to kill himself, and got both Epsilon and Tex stuck in the memory unit. They all know, though, and the weight of his sins hangs heavy on his shoulders. He wishes he knew how to atone.

He knows that the reds and blues are batshit crazy, though. They find a couple of deserted Freelancer bases nearby and camp out there, content to mooch off of the supplies still being dropped monthly by pelican despite the absence of sim troopers. Wash wonders, briefly, what happened to the previous inhabitants. It doesn’t seem important to the simulation troopers; they settle down in the bases, ridiculously, like everything’s normal. Things are decidedly not normal.

Caboose is more than a little confused by Wash’s cobalt armor, even with the yellow accents. It’s grating to be called Church when he spent literal years trying to remember his own name, trying to convince himself he _isn’t_ Church, but he puts up with it as best he can. Tucker doesn’t exactly make nice with him, but he doesn’t give him shit for being paranoid and doing constant perimeter checks, so Wash figures they’re alright. The reds stay _far_ away on their side of the canyon, and he’s okay with that. They could all use some time to calm down.

Doc leaves after Wash’s stitches are taken out, and boredom sets in shortly after. Wash inventories the supplies, sorts them and resorts them several times. He cleans the coffeemaker, the sink, the showers. He does five perimeter checks a day. He runs laps at night when he can’t sleep. The ball of anger isn’t white-hot anymore, but it’s rattling around in his chest somewhere, cold and sorrowful and guilty. He desperately needs to keep his hands busy, keep himself from going insane, keep himself in line—

The reds show up one night while Tucker and Caboose are asleep and Wash is running laps. They raid his neatly-organized store room, scatter his supplies and steal whatever they can carry. Wash stares at the wreckage, dumbfounded, before looking to Tucker for guidance. And Tucker—

—Tucker ignites his sword and charges across the canyon. He fucking charges red base in the middle of the night, and Wash gets his gun and charges right alongside him. Caboose somehow catches up and joins the charge despite only having one boot on and several pieces of armor missing.

When they get to red base, Wash kicks the door into splinters, bolts in, and tackles Grif to the floor, neatly landing on Simmons who was behind him. Tucker slams a cabinet door into Sarge’s helmet, breaking the cabinet and knocking him down. Caboose grabs an armful of their stolen supplies, and then Tucker grabs more, and then Wash grabs the rest. They scream insults back at the reds over their shoulders as they sprint to blue base in record time, shutting and bolting the door behind them and dumping their supplies on the kitchen floor.

Caboose picks up both of them in a group hug, swinging them around wildly and nearly making Wash sick to his stomach, and Wash? Wash has never been happier. Or more proud. They dig into the supplies, eating the best MREs at two-thirty in the morning, reveling in their victory.

Wash could get used to this, he thinks. To winning. To loyalty. To having people to back him up, no matter how important or how stupid the mission is.

The reds and blues play capture the flag, more or less, with their ample food supplies being the reward. Blue team amasses a respectable amount of food, although Grif somehow gets more and more creative and manages to score more MREs than Wash would have expected. He swears to never get in between Grif and food again, after this.

Tucker finds a stashed bottle of whiskey one day, tucked between the storage shelves and the wall, and Wash asks if they can save a couple shots for his birthday. Not only does Tucker save the bottle, he bakes several ration bars together and bullies the reds into coming over and singing him happy birthday. Caboose calls him _Church_ instead of _Wash_ , but he can’t bring himself to care as he sips whiskey and eats baked ration bars and laughs with his team.

Loyalty is hard to come by, Wash knows, but he’s willing to give it another try.

+1

Carolina is the last thing Wash expected. Or wanted. She’s good in combat, sure, and she’s a good strategist. That’s…about all she has going for her at the moment, to be honest. She’s even more of a hardass than she was in Freelancer. She’s hard on the reds and blues, she’s hard on _him_ , and she drives them nearly to the point of breaking.

They do reach a breaking point, of sorts, and Wash knows he’ll be at a crossroads soon enough. He doesn’t want to have to choose between her and them. He so badly wants to work _with_ her—he’s spent so long pulling his team down to climb above them, all he wants is to help her. Honestly, revenge doesn’t sound as pretty as it used to, but if Carolina needs his help, then he’ll be there for her. And if following Carolina will get Church back, he’ll do anything to give that to his team, especially to Caboose.

Church is not as appreciative.

Wash finds himself back at square one with _everyone_. Church seems to have a newfound hatred of Wash, not that they ever got along, to be fair, but Wash finds himself avoiding Epsilon wherever possible. The reds and blues don’t trust him again, not as long as he’s taking orders from Carolina. And Carolina trusts him the _least_ , somehow, despite him dropping everything to help her. Out of all of them, Wash has always been the loyal one.

She should know that.

In the process of trying to prove his loyalty to Carolina, he gets the ire of the reds and blues. And Carolina sure as hell doesn’t seem to care what happens to him either way. The ball in his chest grows knives and cuts deep when he realizes she’s still acting like she needs to climb up the ladder, like she needs to put everyone else down to stay on top. Wash has been there. He knows it doesn’t get you anything but a body count larger than your conscience can stand.

_You know, we almost managed to trap the Meta the last time we were here._

_But you didn’t._

_No. I guess not._

Wash will follow her. He _needs_ to. He needs to hold on to the last thing he has from Freelancer, he needs to help her complete her mission. He needs to keep her from falling down the same path he did.

_Don’t tell me hanging around these morons has made you soft_.

He’s come leagues since she last saw him. He’s been leading blue team. He knows what makes them tick, knows they’re tired—

_Don’t tell me how to lead my squad, Washington! Now. Sweep the area, and report back to me when you’re done._

Look, Wash knows loyalty is hard to come by. But all he has to do is persevere. He’ll prove to her that he can be trusted, that he’s worth a damn—

_Alright. What’ve you got?_

_Not much. A few shell casings, a dog tag—_

_I was talking to Church._

Wash wants to atone for the sins laying heavy on his shoulders. He has a chance to do that here. 

_Good, keep it up…. Wash, is there a reason you’re just standing there doing nothing? Get back to it._

He just needs to prove his loyalty—

_Well don’t you think we’re pushing these guys a little too hard?_

_Despite what those idiots may think, this is not a road trip. This is a mission. And I will see it completed. Is that understood, Agent Washington?_

He just needs—

_Leaver personnel decisions to me, Agent Washington!_

He needs—

_Well, what about now?_

Wash knows how to atone for his sins. The ball in his chest loosens, unravels, disappears entirely. He presses his gun to her head, firm and steady, and breathes deeply for the first time in years.

_Wash, what are you doing?_

Look. Wash knows loyalty is hard to come by. But the reds and blues have attained his, and nothing, not even Carolina, will take that from them.

_Protecting my friends. Now lower the weapon._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


End file.
